Medical Drawings


The uterus, vagina, and ovaries--still labeled female testicles--from Regnier de Graaf's De mulierum organis generationi inservientibus(1672).   If the vagina were not sectioned open, the picture would resemble earlier drawings produced to show the male and female organs as isomorphic.   From Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex,p. 159.


The various parts of the female reproductive system and external genitalia are disaggregated.   The vagina is opened so that it does not have the penislike effect of the closed organ shown in Renaissance illustrations.   The clitoris, left top, is shown separately, and no effort is made to render the external pudenda as a female foreskin as before.   On the right the uterus is shown in relation to the kidneys and their vasculature; the vagina is not shown.   From William Cowper, The Anatomy of Humane Bodies(1697).   Reproduced here from Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex,p. 160.




A modern schematic drawing of the uterus, ovaries, and Fallopian tubes.   Reproduced here from Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex,p. 166.


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  last modified: 09/25/00